The Resistance
by TheCurtisclan
Summary: After being legally dead for a few hours, Louis only has Ellie, Joel, and the rest of his friends to thank for saving him. Still haunted by his schizophrenic hallucinations, he and the group have finally made their way up to Salt Lake City and to the Fireflies, and all seems to be going well. Until Louis is given a choice. Will he choose his friends, or stay with The Resistance?


**Note from author: I really haven't written one of these for a while now. It really does feel good to get back into it though. Anyway, quick reminder to read the previous stories, they'll make the story make more sense, yadda yadda yadda. Check out the first story, **_**Louis and Ellie's adventure**_**, and just go on from there.**

"_What if you wake up one morning and you're in the bed with the love of your life and they have their arm around you and they're snoring like a fucking asshole, but you can't help but to smile, and you hear a baby crying and it finally hits you; you've made it. You beat the demons inside you, the voices, the darkness. I look forward to that, to knowing I made it." _Anonymous.

"So, let me get this straight; they call it Rugby over there?" Louis asked Shane, Sara's soft hand intertwined with his four fingered left hand. Louis had many bandages from back in April. Along with his hands, which had a total of three fingers cut off, he had also been shot in the head, and had his right leg broken. All things considered, he had healed pretty quickly, being able to walk properly after a couple of weeks and taking his head bandage off after a few days. The only bandage he couldn't explain was the one that Ellie had wrapped around his arm. He always tried steering the conversation away from his 'tendencies', but it somehow always seemed to pop up when he took any sort of long sleeved jacket or shirt off.

"No, it's a completely different game. We call soccer football." Shane told him in his thick accent. Louis gave out a laugh.

"That's fucking stupid!" He got a hard whack to the stomach by Sara.

"Don't say that! That's his culture, Louis." She scolded him.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." He looked up ahead to Joel. "Hey Joel, where's the hospital?" Joel looked back at him and pointed to the right of the freeway they were on.

"Just over there. No more than an hour away." Louis happily sighed.

"Thank God. I don't know how much more walking I could take." Louis let go of Sara's hand and started to walk beside Joel. "So what's the plan Joel? When we get there?" Joel rubbed his graying beard.

"I don't know. I'm having my doubts about this."

"Doubts? Joel you can't be serious!" Louis looked back at Ellie, who was talking to Shane and Sara. "Ellie is the most important person in the world at the moment. To all of us. She is quite possibly the savior of humanity. Joel, you told me you were a smuggler, correct?" Joel sighed and nodded. "Have you ever half-assed a job before?"

"Louis, this ain't just a job. This is something different."

"You and I both know that this is just a glorified job, with a package that you'll be able to keep after the job is done. So until this is over, it is just a job. So I will ask you again; have you ever half-assed a job?" Joel scratched the back of his neck.

"No I haven't." He finally replied.

"Exactly! You can't just come all the way from Boston to end up quitting out of a doubt! I made that mistake once, and I regret it to this day. Listen Joel, have you even asked Ellie about this? I'm gonna make sure you do." He sighed. "And I need to hand in my resignation to the Fireflies anyway." They walked in silence for a few seconds.

"Louis, I could never get over the death of my daughter. I spent the first few months of the infection with my gun on the side of my head. I don't want a repeat of that situation."

"You won't have to worry. Have some faith in the Fireflies' abilities. For the record, have faith in my abilities, and Shane as well. We would never, ever, let anything happen to her. Even if it means losing my life in the process." Louis looked down to the ground.

"She really means a lot more to you than you let on."

"Don't go there Joel. That's dangerous territory. Which kind of reminds me; how do you feel about Shane and Ellie?"

"I'm fine with it."

"Joel, don't bullshit me. I know the inner dad instinct in you wants to knock Shane's fucking block off. I notice the way you cringe and look away when they hug and kiss." Joel awkwardly chuckled.

"I guess. But teenage relationships never last."

"But you had one, didn't you? That was how you got Sarah. What happened to Sarah's mother anyway?"

"Well, I married her for a short period of time. But the responsibilities of being a parent got to her, and she filed for divorce. Don't know what happened to her after that, but I could care less." Louis wiped some of his blonde hair behind his ear.

"You don't really think that relationships started as teenagers never last, do you?"

"Everything's gotta end one day." Louis thought for a moment.

"Not everything Joel. Why do you think the number infinite exists? And sure, a lot of stuff will end, but that only happens when you trick yourself into thinking that it will end. Things can only end if you say they end."

_Barney stood at the end of the bed, holding his brand new baby boy in his arms. He gave a small smile at the child, his child. He looked to his wife, who lay in the bed._

"_We did it. We actually did it. We brought a baby into this screwed up world." He told her. His wife was too tired to respond in words, so she simply smiled and nodded. He felt a hand touch his shoulder, and looked back to see the doctor with a grim look on his face._

"_Barney, we have two problems. Do you want the worse one, or the bad one?" Barney grew worried, hearing the steady beeps of the heart rate monitor hooked up to his wife._

"_I'll take the bad news then." The doctor gave Barney a clipboard with his child's details on it._

"_We used a scan on the baby, and we found out he might have a mental problem when he gets older. Schizophrenia, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Now, I wouldn't one hundred percent trust the test, and I haven't practiced childbirth tests in five years, but this is extremely reliable as a source." Barney dropped the clipboard and handed his baby to the doctor, then sat down on the bed._

"_What…what's the worse news then?" He asked the doctor, not looking up at him. He heard the heart monitor from his wife start rapidly beeping._

"_That is." The doctor gave Barney his child, ran to the mother's side, placed his hands on her chest over each other, and started to push. He gestured for Gerald to quickly enter, which he did. Barney didn't move from his spot, and continued comforting his child. "Fuck fuck fuck, she's going into cardiac arrest!" _

"_Don't you have defibrillators or something?" Gerald asked him._

"_I don't have that sort of equipment!" A single high pitched tone was heard from the monitor, and the doctor backed away from the bed. "I could've saved her if I had the proper equipment. Those are luxuries that I do not have access to. I'm sorry Barney, but she's gone." The doctor put his hand on Barney's shoulder._

"_What am I supposed to do now? This baby was her life dream, and now she's…gone. I can't believe it." Barney stood up from the foot of the bed, and looked at Gerald. "Gerald, I know what your policy about new recruit's i-" _

"_Calm down Barney. The child can stay, even with his condition. I'm not sure how the men will take it, but you're my friend Barney. And if something's important to you, it's important to me." Barney gave his friend a smile. You really couldn't find people like Gerald these days._

Shane lifted the last of the group up onto the second floor of the mossy building before hauling himself up. He stood next to Ellie, who was the last person he lifted up, before hearing Sara's delighted squeal coming from further down the building. They both jogged to the source, and saw only Joel waiting for them, a small smile on his face. "Hey Joel, what's up? Where are Sara and Louis?"

"They're just up ahead. You'll never believe what they saw. Come on." He gestured for them to follow him, which they did. They made their way further through the weed covered building, and eventually into a small room, where they were jaw-dropped at the sight of a fucking giraffe! Ellie ran up first and stood beside Louis and Sara, who were marveling at the creature. Joel and Shane followed her, Shane running his hand through his hair.

"This is really something. Never seen anything like it." Shane mumbled to himself. The giraffe bit a leaf off a ranch of a tree that grew beside the building, then proceeded to walk off.

"Aw, man! Where's it going?" Ellie whined. "C'mon, let's follow it!" Ellie ran off further into the building, and out of sight. The rest of the group followed her, and found themselves on the roof of a small building, overseeing a gorgeous orange sun and a herd of giraffes wandering an evacuation zone long since forgotten. They all lent on the railing, taking in the view.

"Wow…One in a million, huh?" Ellie sighed.

"You can say that again. You can never really appreciate things like this these days, that's for sure." Joel told her. Louis gave a nudge to Joel, signaling for him to talk to Ellie. Joel gave a deep sigh and looked at Ellie. "Ellie, you know we don't have to do this right?" Ellie looked over at him, and scoffed.

"You can't be serious Joel! Look at how far we've come since Boston! We've been through so much, and lost a lot to be here. Tess, Sam, Henry; they can't of have all died for nothing. It's too late to back out now, we can't just stop halfway. Listen, we can go wherever you want _after_ we've finished this, alright?" She backed away from the railing and opened a door to the left of them, leading downstairs.

"Don't worry about it Joel." Louis told him. "I'm sure it'll be all done and finished soon enough." Joel grumbled in reply and followed after her.

Joel signaled for the rest of the group to crouch down behind a nearby car. They had finally come across the first infected they had seen in days, not that it was a relief. He peaked from behind the car and counted the infected. Shit. Two Bloaters and six Clickers.

"Doesn't look good. Those things are blocking our only way through." He whispered to them, before pulling out his shotgun and loading a few shells into it.

"You think we could take out that many infected?" Shane questioned, taking out his pistol as well. "Do we at least have a damn plan of action?"

"Well, something like that. The clickers are easy enough to kill; it's the bloaters we have to look out for."

"Bloaters? You never told us about them."

"Have you ever seen one?" Shane, Louis, and Sara shook their heads. Joel gestured for them, and they crept up behind him to look at the pack of infected. "The Bloaters are the big ones, and the most dangerous. They got ten times the strength of a gorilla, the resilience of a tank, and on top of that? They throw sacks of that gas that the old ones release into the air. We could probably take them on their own, so we need to split them up."

"You sure that's gonna work? Those things seem pretty dangerous."

"If you guys got a better plan, I'd love to hear it. Ellie and I'll lead one away and further down the tunnel, and you guys can take out the other one. You think you can handle that?"

"Sounds easy 'nuff." Shane replied, backing up away from Joel and Ellie, with Louis and Sara. Joel grabbed a bottle from beside him, and threw it directly at the closest Bloater. The thing coiled back, and looked back at the direction of the thrower. He let out a deep throated screech and ran straight at Joel, who proceeded to run with Ellie in the opposite direction. The Bloater passed the other three teenagers, along with a couple of Clickers. Shane slowly crept up past the car and scoured the area. There were three Clickers and a Bloater further down the tunnel left. "Alright, so this seems simple. We deal with the Clickers first and then the Bloater. Any ideas?" Louis took out a Molotov from his backpack.

"This good enough for you?" He asked, with a smile on his face.

"Seems good enough for me. Sara, when the Clickers are all burned up, distract the Bloater and Louis and I will give it everything we got." Sara nodded, making Louis light up the Molotov with his lighter. He stood up, and threw the Molotov far enough so it hit the ground between the three Clickers, spreading far enough to set them alight. The Clickers violently thrashed and screeched, eventually falling to the ground. Sara acted quickly, jumping over the car and running to the right of the Bloater, making as much noise as possible. This caused the Bloater to turn and focus on her, and it lumbered towards her. Shane gestured to Louis, and they both stood up, and pointed their guns at the monster._ Don't miss, Louis_. Louis felt his hand slip, and instead of shooting the Bloater, he just narrowly missed Sara.

"Fuck!" He whispered to himself. He ducked back down behind the cover and dropped his gun beside him. _I told you not to miss Louis! What the hell was that? _"This isn't the right time." He angrily said. _Right time for what? Louis, you've gotten sloppy in your decision making. What made you think you could do this?_ "I trust Shane. He's a good fighter, and more importantly, a good leader."_ His best plan was to 'give it everything you've got'. He's an incompetent decision maker, not fit for the line of duty. You could trust him as far as you could throw him._ "Then I must be able to throw him pretty damn far. I trust him a hell of a lot more than you."_ How could you even compare him to me? I'm your conscience, something that you thought up. Why would you imagine me if you didn't trust me?_ "I sure as hell didn't have a choice…did I?"_ I don't know, did you?_ Louis thought for a moment. He kept hearing the gunshots coming from above him, though everything seemed to almost slow down, like a second lasted an hour. "Why did you disappear then? I'm not sure if I'm depressed by you not being there for me. I'm not sad. But I haven't been happy either. I can laugh and joke and forget about you during the day, but I end up feeling alone at night when I can't hear you talking to me." _I wish I hadn't. But I'm here now, to guide you towards the right decisions. Like, how much of a threat is this Bloater? Too predictable if you ask me. Now humans, you can't tell what they're gonna do. _"What are you suggesting?" _You know what I'm suggesting._ Louis was snapped back into reality by Shane giving him a hard slap to the face.

"C'mon you crazy git! Can't have you going off into your own world now, can we?" Louis gulped and vigorously nodded. Shane gave him a hand up and Louis managed to get up onto his feet, and he grabbed his pistol again. He saw Sara opposite them, cowering behind a rusty car while the Bloater frantically bashed on said car. Louis aimed the pistol and fired the whole clip into the monster, yet it did not go down.

"Fuck! The thing's too strong! What do we do?" Louis yelled to Shane. Shane pulled out started to push the car they were behind, and gestured for Louis to do the same. Louis obeyed, and they slowly started to push the car towards the Bloater. "What the fuck is this gonna do?"

"We'll crush the thing between the cars. If that doesn't kill it, we'll at least have it trapped!" They continued to push the car until it started to crush the Bloater. When the car couldn't be pushed any further, Louis and Shane stepped back and tried to catch their breaths. The Bloater still thrashed about, it's terrible screech echoing the tunnel. Sara came to stand beside them, and Joel and Ellie returned victorious from their battle against one of the Bloaters.

"Well, I'll be. You trapped the thing." Joel said, impressed.

"Yeah well, I'd rather not be here when it breaks out." Louis replied. Joel nodded to him and they made their way from the thing and up to a truck. Shane and Sara jumped up the truck, and pulled each of the other three people up onto the truck.

"This doesn't seem very safe." Louis said, placing one foot on the bus. He peaked below at the rushing rapids, and gulped.

"Just hurry up. The sooner you get across it, the sooner you can stop worrying about it." Joel told him. Louis took a deep breath, and quickly made his way across the bus and onto the other side. Ellie was the next to go, then Sara, which left Shane and Joel. Shane stepped onto the bus, and felt it begin to rock.

"Bloody 'ell! This thing won't take much more!" Shane made halfway across before feeling the bus shake again. He swore he could hear cracking, like a window. "Oh shi-" He felt the glass under his feet break, causing him to fall into the half water filled bus. He felt like a ragdoll, being flung to the back of the bus, crashing against it and making a loud grunt as he did. Joel appeared above him, and attempted to lift up a glass emergency exit window. With the water rushing against him, Shane couldn't move. He saw the others above him, all trying desperately to get the window open. The bus shifted again, and that managed to be the final blow. The bus went under water, causing the others in the group to lose their footing on the bus and fall off into the water below. Shane held his breath, and saw his exit out of the bus when everything had settled. He swam out a window, and the first person he saw was Ellie. But she couldn't swim. Seriously, where the fuck was everyone else? Shane swam in steady strokes over to her, and grabbed her unconscious body, before swimming further and out of the tunnel.

Shane took a deep breath, and brought Ellie further ashore. He couldn't see any of the others, but there was no time for that now. Shane placed his ear on her chest, but couldn't feel her breathing. Placing his hands on her chest, he began to perform CPR on her.

"1…2…3…push," he whispered to himself. "1…2…3…push. 1…2…3-"

"Hold it right fucking there!" He heard a voice order him. He looked up to see two men, both dressed in bullet-proof vests. They were Fireflies! Shane put one hand in the air, and used his other hand to reach into his shirt to find his pendant.

Displaying the pendant to them, he said, "Don't worry! I'm a Firefly!" The man didn't seem to take that as a valid answer, but Shane didn't care. There was only one thing happening in his life right now; saving Ellie. He continued pushing her chest a few more times, before leaning over her mouth and blowing air into it.

"I said to fucking hold it!" He shouted again.

"Listen you bloody berk, this girl is going to die if I stop!" He heard splashing and gasping behind him, but hadn't the time to check if his friends were okay. He knew the Firefly was nearing him, but ignored it. One of the Fireflies got a bit too close to comfort to Shane before a harsh voice barked at him to stop. Shane still didn't look up; that was until he heard Ellie sputter and gasp for air, and only then was he content enough to look up from his position. Before him stood none other than the leader of the Fireflies herself; Marlene.

"No way," She mumbled under her breath. "Do my eyes deceive me?" She said in a louder voice. "Did you guys actually make it?"

Joel was the one to answer, "Almost sounds like you didn't think we would. Did have a little bit of help though." Shane gave her an awkward wave, whereas Louis and Sara were too busy catching their breath to say anything.

"Wait a minute… Louis and Shane, right?" She asked.

Shane nodded. "Glad to see you remembered us."

"How could I not? A schizophrenic and my most efficient soldier; not exactly a forgettable pair. How the hell did you guys find Joel and Ellie?" She gazed over at Sara. "And who is she?"

Joel went and helped Ellie onto her feet, then said, "It ain't easy to explain. How about I explain it on the way to the hospital?" Marlene nodded, content with the offer.

The group sat huddled around in chairs while Joel told Marlene of the ordeal that he and Ellie had to go through to get here: Tess dying, Henry, Sam, and the hunters, Joel getting wounded at the university, the meeting with Shane and Louis, the incident with David, meeting Sara, and finally, Louis being legally dead for almost five hours.

"Jesus," Marlene exclaimed. "You guys _have_ been through a lot. But it still amazes me that you made it this far." She let out a deep sigh. "I lost half my men traversing the country, and you guys just seem to… suddenly turn up. How?"

"Well," Joel replied. "It was mostly Ellie. She kept us going through thick and thin."

"So she did. Thank god you did make it, though. This'll definitely be a boost in moral around here."

"You having a problem with moral around here?" Louis asked, as one of the Firefly doctors re-wrapped the bandages on his hands.

"Just the usual: hapless troops in a dreary time. If you guys have any ideas on how to raise the hopes of my troops, I'd be glad to hear them."

"Well, first things first, do you have any form of entertainment here?" Sara asked.

"Not really, no," Marlene shook her head. "I generally keep the men and women busy to pass the time."

Sara clicked her tongue a couple of times. "Then there's your problem. Isn't it your objective to give people hope?" Marlene gave a chuckle.

"Good point. I'll see to it I get something set up later today."

"What about the vaccine?" Ellie asked. "When is that going down?"

"I still got a, uh," Marlene glanced to the floor, as if avoiding eye contact with the group, then looked back up at Ellie. "I got a few details I need to work out." Ellie nodded, content with her answer. "Oh wait," Marlene said, looking towards Shane. "I almost forgot. It's a little bit late, but congratulations on finally turning eighteen Shane." Shane froze up. How the hell would she remember his real age?

"Wait, what?" Ellie asked. "You turned eighteen? You said you were seventeen."

"Well, I-uh, I was seventeen; when we first met. But I turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago and kept it a secret." He scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Why?" Ellie asked. "This is a pretty big secret to keep from us…from me!"

Louis could tell Sara was uncomfortable, as he was as well, so he decided he had to get out before this argument got any worse. "Sara and I are going to check out the place." He nudged Sara in the arm. "Aren't we?" Sara nodded, grateful that he got them out of that situation, and stood up with him to leave the small room.

When they had left the room, Sara sighed and gave her boyfriend a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for getting us out of there. I didn't want to see where that was going." They started walking down a long hallway filled with various Firefly soldiers and hospital rooms. "Did you know Shane was eighteen?" She asked as they passed a Firefly who was smoking.

"Nah," Louis replied. "The pommy bastard always told me he was seventeen."

"Why would he keep something like this hidden from us?"

"A variety of reasons. I would think that it would have something to do with the age difference between him and Ellie. Three years isn't too bad for teenagers, but I'm pretty sure that an eighteen year old dating a fourteen year old is just borderline wrong."

"I wouldn't think so. What is it they say, age is just a number?"

"And a prison cell is just a room." Sara stopped just outside a storage closet and put her hands on her hips.

"Do you really believe that?" She asked. Louis stopped to face her.

"Well, I would… but in this day and age, who cares? Laws don't apply anymore, and society now overlooks things that it would've thought as disgusting before the virus. Besides, we're fifteen, and I'm pretty sure we'd be branded immature kids for what we've done together. You know, besides the killing."

Sara thought for a moment before looking towards the storage door. She looked back and smiled at Louis. "Speaking of immaturity, you want to have a quick one before we head back to the group?" Louis smiled back at her.

"Sara, if I ever were to say no to that, I want you to assume that I'm having a crazy hallucination and I want you to shoot me." He closed the gap between them, and began to kiss her passionately. They backed into the storage closet, making sure no-one were to see them enter.


End file.
